Unexpectedly, Milo - Matthew Dicks [82]
Loquacious: Talkative or chatty, full of excessive talk.
He had hoped that satisfying his curiosity would eliminate the unending repetition in his head, but it had not. Not that he was surprised. Though he had been praying that this was a mere instance of uncontrollable curiosity, he feared, and nearly expected, that it was more. Something in his gut had told Milo that this would be another of the many demands that were routinely placed upon him by some unknown force.
Demands that served no purpose other than to plague him.
As Mr. Morin, the science teacher with the floral bow tie and Hitler-like mustache who required his students to raise their dominant hand when asking a question, described the next series of experiments (which amounted to the rolling of more steel spheres), Milo came to understand what he must do in order to free himself of loquacious. It wasn’t a sudden inspiration or a miraculous realization. It wasn’t a brilliant moment of insight or the dawning of self-awareness. The solution had been there all along, out in the open, if you will, just waiting for Milo to confirm that a problem existed in need of it. Once Milo had determined that the demand of this word wasn’t the result of curiosity or happenstance, he knew what must be done.
How he might achieve satisfaction had been another thing entirely.
As Milo turned off Route 95 onto Baltimore Avenue in the direction of the University of Maryland, placebo grew more persistent in his mind. It was nearly ten P.M., and he was ready to find a place to sleep for the night. Despite the new word having taken up residence in his head, Milo felt good. He had made it to College Park before having to stop for the night and could expect to be in North Carolina by the next afternoon. Placebo might slow him down a bit, but it wouldn’t prevent him from getting a good night’s sleep or making it to his destination on time or close to it. Thankfully, he had learned to assume some degree of control over these words long ago.
Twenty-one years before, a word like placebo would have already been careening throughout his brain, gaining volume and intensity without restraint. Part of the escalation, Milo had come to understand, was a result of his own fear that he would be unable to rid himself of the word. Anxiety and the strict secrecy that he maintained had fed the need, causing it to become more and more debilitating. But as Milo had found a means to alleviate each word, hundreds and perhaps thousands over the years, he had learned that the ability to remain confident and calm kept the demand temporarily at bay. Kept it manageable.
Loquacious had been anything but manageable.
By the end of the first day, loquacious was ruling Milo’s middle school life. He found it impossible to concentrate on anything else for any length of time, and even Dr. Who, his favorite television program of the time, could not provide an escape from its echoing call. His sleep that first night had been fitful and broken as his fear that the word might consume him grew exponentially. For a time, he considered speaking to his parents about the problem, but, having successfully hidden his other oddities from them for years, he wasn’t ready to let them in on this embarrassing secret.
His experience with Jimbo Powers and his mother had taught him better. There were parts of a person, of his person, at least, that were better left hidden, and from the moment that he had popped that red balloon up until loquacious entered his mind, he had managed to do so with surprising effectiveness. He wasn’t about to start embarrassing himself now by telling his parents about this word trapped in his head. No matter what, he would not give anyone else, especially his mother and father, the chance to view him as some kind of monster.
But by the third day, Milo was in a near panic. Though he knew it wouldn’t work, he had asked friends to repeat